Yesterday we reported that the Perth Mint’s 1/2 oz Lunar Series silver coin sales are up nearly 40 fold from 2007-2008.
With silver hovering in the mid-upper $20’s after the latest raid coinciding with last week’s FOMC speech by Bernanke, demand for investment silver products has been absolutely soaring, particularly demand for fractional products such as 90% silver coins.

The industry’s largest online retailer APMEX is now COMPLETELY SOLD OUT of 90% silver bags.
APMEX has drastically raised their prices (on the silver they expect to receive in 10 days on July 6th) on 90% silver to $1.59/oz over spot for $100 face value bags and $1.45/oz over spot for $500 face value bags.

These items are on a slight delay. We expect to be able to ship these items by July 6th

As we have inside knowledge of the wholesale silver market via SD Bullion, we can attest that the wholesale inventories of fractional silver, particularly 90% coins are rapidly evaporating with numerous wholesalers completely out of inventory and are substantially raising premiums daily.

SD Bullion still has a limited inventory of 90% silver available in both $100 face and $500 face value, and we will continue to leave our price as low as .79/oz over spotwhile our supplies last.

Many silver investors have been remaining on the sidelines in hopes of ‘backing up the truck’ should silver decline further to long term support near $20-22, with some speculating the metal could even fall to $15. Experienced stackers and silver investors can attest to the fact that physical silver will likely not be available under $25 should paper prices dip to $20-$22, and it is highly unlikely physical silver will be attainable for even $20 should paper silver decline to $15.

In the depths of 2008 when silver’s futures prices touched $8/oz, physical investment metal could not obtained anywhere for under $12-$13 an ounce- nearly 50-60% premiums to paper futures market prices!

As most of our readers are aware, silver is such a small market that if a mere $1 billion attempted to purchase physical silver right now the price would double to triple overnight.

The sudden rise in silver premiums and vanishing supply is indicating that some deep pockets are likely entering the market at these extremely low prices and sucking up all available inventory.

Can read how there is a silver shortage or how we should expect a silver
squeeze at any time—two or three times through….but under it all have seen a
lot of them and regardless how convincing some interview is or how neat an
article was there is always somebody else that comes a long and refutes
it….

Well, I don’t see silver dipping much from here considering I think we are entering *Level 1 Awareness Phase, there is a whole new class of physical buyers, an uptick in viewership on sites like this, zerohedge, brotherJohnF, etc, and even the mainstream media has some articles that are a little pro-silver w/ the Nasdaq article claiming JPM is manipulating the price.

The investor psychology is telling me that we are counter-attacking the shorts and we are about to see an unprecedented level of physical buying from places such as Europe as rich investors will want to buy silver and gold in overseas vaults (aka UK, German, Greek, Italians, French, and Spanish will be buying silver and gold in American vaults).

At ABC Bullion we have seen an uptick in silver sales over the last several days, on the back of the declining silver spot price and strengthening Aussie$. Mostly our regular clients “stacking the smack”, but I also had a new client interested in investing $80K in silver, which on that day would have netted him just under 3,000oz in kilo bar form. Not a bad for your first stack!

I expect to see this happening more often now as Europe’s economy declines. Maybe Hugo Salinas convinced all the Greeks to get in on the constitutional silver game and they are now using old US silver coins as their new currency. LOL. And the good thing is, they don’t have to print. LMAO.

I see this site is partnered with APMEX, but MPM, Gainesville, Tulving have plenty of stock of 90%. MPM is only .40 over spot on 90%, any qty. I think tulving is out of 90% & 40% halves but that is par for them. ASEs spot price looks to be lower than normal on those sites as well.

At APMEX when you type in the amount of silver you want to buy, if you place a number larger than they presently have, the amount APMEX will provide you will be the number listed. For example: if you want to know how many 2010 Silver Eagles APMEX simply type in the window associated with the 2010 Silver Eagles (9999) and any amount less than that will be revealed so you can know how many 2010 Silver Eagles APMEX presently has to sell.

I think people are worrying about .50 cents here and .50 cents there wayyyy too much. I understand you want to get the best deal possible and im with you, but with the current price of silver, all that really doesn’t matter. We are not buying silver to sell it once it hits $50…..we are holding it for the long term. Once silver is at $150/oz, $300/oz or $500/oz, are you really going to care whether you paid .80 cents or $1.50 over spot when you bought at $27 ?? Im sure as heck not. Im going to keep buying while i can before the supply is totally dry…..KEEP BUYING, KEEP STACKING!! 🙂

I recently attended an estate coin auction. In the past these auctions would have usually drawn 50-60 people. The last one had in excess of 200. The hottest item was various forms of junk. I can usually get it at auction for about spot. This last one junk went at spot + 10%. I did score a complete collection of Franklin halves, 35 coins. All BU in a book. Nobody seemed to want them. I stoled the set.

In the depths of 2008 when silver’s futures prices touched $8/oz,
physical investment metal could not obtained anywhere for under $12-$13
an ounce- nearly 50-60% premiums to paper futures market prices!

I bought twice during that spike lower. The price got whacked to $9 and change and I bought. I used Colorado Gold. They called Brinks on the other phone (I could hear them verify the price and lock it in). I got my order as quickly as my check cleared. No problems…

Then, 3 or 4 weeks later the price was a tiny bit lower and I bought again. I could hear them on the phone locking in the price but when they got back to me they said the delivery would be delayed. But the price was locked in and go ahead and send the check to them. It took 7 or 8 weeks until I got delivery.

As long as the big distributors like Brinks honor the spot price, I suspect the paper manipulations will hold together, albeit with delays. But as a result of that fiasco, Colorado Gold no longer lists everything possible on their web site. They list what can be delivered immediately, and if there is just a short (a few week) delay, they will list the product with a caution.

My speculation is if they whack the price to $22 and hold it there for any length of time, you will see just about everything go into the ‘Not Immediately Available’ category. If the manipulator’s hold the price there too long, people will start standing for delivery on the 1000 oz. bars at the COMEX just like they did last time. They can play games for short periods of time, but if they get too ridiculous, they will cause a separation of physical and paper prices and they most certainly do not want that. In fact, it sure looks like when the 1000 oz. bars started leaving the COMEX is when they said “Uncle!” and let the price go back up some until the pressure was off.

This time, if there isn’t deliverable metal available, it is going to take less time for people to catch on and start draining the COMEX. Last time JB Slear offered to personally coach and help anybody do just that if they wanted to. This time, people like Jason Homel are set up to do just that and run the 1000 oz. bars through their refining process to make smaller items to satisfy the demand. The manipulators can smash the price to get some contracts closed out. But I don’t think they can hold it ridiculously lows for indefinite periods of time anymore.

This is not simply an APMEX phenomenon, as stated, it is across the board with our suppliers.

This from SilverVigilante today:

Junk silver is a different story. As a primarily secondary market
item, it can paint a clear picture of silver demand. And, currently,
major distributors – not just APMEX – across the board are out of junk
silver completely. Withdrwaing addicts will soon take to the streets
demanding their junk. Premiums have rocketed as can be seen by using the
tool of Compare Silver Prices for example. Whereas just months ago Silver Doctors offered junk at 25 cents over spot, the low price at CSP
is now 79 cents over spot! That’s more than a 200% increase in the
premiums of low offers by United States retailers. Many prices are even
higher than the .79 over spot. The company in question likely has
reserves of this product and does not need to tiptoe out onto the open
market. As SilverDoctors recently reported:

APMEX has drastically raised their prices (on the silver they
expect to receive in 10 days on July 6th) on 90% silver to $1.59/oz over
spot for $100 face value bags and$1.45/oz over spot for $500 face value
bags.

Strange. I was just on today as well as yesterday and they had over $325,000 worth of 90% silver just in the “specific coin bag”. Not sure what you are looking at when you see they are sold out. Most bags are in the single digit, but not nearly sold. I’m sure if I look at the mix bags I will see atleast $600,000 more. That leads to almost million dollars worth of 90% silver. I wouldn’t call that short on supply. I wish you were right, but not this time.

milescali, those are specific coins (berbers, walking libs, etc) that carry a higher premium than generic $100 face or $500 face bags. The point is that supply of 90% silver coins is extremely tight currently, not that APMEX doesnt have any specialty higher premium product in stock.

The generic 90% face value silver bags are sold out til July 6th, which is unusual for APMEX.

I attempted to purchase silver directly from the mint in Perth in December 2011 (I have accounts direct with them. They send to US with UPS, and you can by-pass the middleman) This was the period of the first Silver Smash in price. For 14 days you could not purchase any coins. If the price is forced down, the mint will put a “Not Available” banner on the merchandise. So when the first Silver price smash hit in December 2011, No silver was available… This could happen again. If Silver price is smashed again by the paper manipulators, watch the mint shut its doors. The Silver might Dip to <$20 but you will not be able to purchase the physical.

On this note, many people in US believe they have to purchase their Stacks through APMEX or other middle-men. A Private buyer cannot buy direct from the mint in US. This puts us at the mercy of the middle dealers who can set prices. You can open direct private accounts with mints around the world (Such as Perth Mint in Australia), and buy direct from the mint. See this as insurance should you not be able to buy your stacks locally should there be a “Silver Run”. There are mints around the world who will UPS the goods to you overnight.

Yes, they often are a little higher than other vendors. I do like the fact that they have more to offer in the 90% realm than just circulated coins, though. I have purchased a number of proof statehood quarters, VF grade Walking Liberty halves, and BU grade Roosevelt dimes and Kennedy halves. Yes, these do cost more than the beat up circulated coins but they are worth it to me. I enjoy looking at my collection from time to time and looking at nice looking coins is more fun than looking at the beat up coins. To each their own, though. The circulated coins are about the cheapest silver out there.

“I think people are worrying about .50 cents here and .50 cents there wayyyy too much.”

Good point, Silverking, and I agree. Yes, we should be aware of the pricing structure but we should not let it control our stacking. I like the dollar cost averaging approach for stacking, so I am buying smaller amounts fairly often. Yeah, like just about everyone else on here I also BTFD. Just ordered 160 ASEs from one vendor and a $100 face bag of BU Kennedy halves plus 10 rolls of Statehood proof quarters from another vendor. Ordering was not a problem but it remains to be seen when actually shipping will occur.

So what if all stackers united. Got on a single email list. Setting aside 10oz worth for the moment the email would come…

THE email would only be a sales trigger. Timed reasonably by a guru such as SD or others, that subscribers would not be caught in too bad a deal.

Anyway, all on the list would place their 10oz order immediately. We could all go for the same coin which is supposed to be safe supply. Or a coin per region, such as Philharmonikers for Europeans, Maple Leafs and Eagle in the new world, etc.

How many stackers are there? When timing it well, we could hit retail inventories pretty hard. When we all stack as our little tax breaks etc come in, they can handle our demand well. Not when we all hit simultaniously on stocked items.

We won’t have $1bln amonst us to set aside I am afraid to cut off the COMEX. More chances there would be among billionaires who just don’t give a rats A about what ancient elites and their helpers think or do. Hey, if anyone can talk sense into the smart money, it could be a joint effort. Run Comex dry, AND all of wholesale and retail. Let’s fugure out how much silver there really is! If shops and wholesalers close shop, we’ll, we can’t count their inventory, now can we? Make sure to let the silver be delivered to you before you sell it though, and not back to the market but to another stacker.

In The Netherlands, 72% junk silver seems to be getting scarser and more expensive. 3.5-5% premiums over spot are the best I see. Even in Germany, 15% over spot is a really nice deal on kilo coins, due to the VAT. Much worse in NL and Belgium. It’s basically paying Euro’s for a $ set price.

THE ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION PROVIDED ON SILVERDOCTORS IS FOR YOUR EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT ONLY, IT IS NOT RECOMMENDED FOR TRADING PURPOSES. THE DOC IS NOT AN INVESTMENT ADVISER AND INFORMATION OBTAINED HERE SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN FOR PROFESSIONAL INVESTMENT ADVICE. THE COMMENTARY ON SILVERDOCTORS REFLECTS THE OPINIONS OF THE DOC AND OTHER CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS. YOUR OWN DUE DILIGENCE IS RECOMMENDED BEFORE BUYING OR SELLING ANY INVESTMENTS, SECURITIES, OR PRECIOUS METALS. WE DO NOT SHARE IN YOUR PROFITS, AND THUS WILL NOT TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR LOSSES AS WELL.